As the Congress juggernaut rolled on in Karnataka, 12 ministers of the Jagadish Shettar cabinet, including Deputy Chief Minister K S Eshwarappa, fell by the wayside, rubbing salt into the wounds of the vanquished Bharatiya Janata Party.
Eshwarappa's loss in Shimoga is all the more significant, as he was a former state unit president of the party and also held the key portfolios of rural development and panchayat raj and revenue.
Eshwarappa lost by about 5,000 votes, and was behind his Congress and Karnataka Janatha Paksha of former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa opponents. Eshwarappa was in the "hit-list" of Yeddyurappa, who now had the "sweet revenge".
Another big gun to lose was Industries Minister Murugesh R Nirani, who had spearheaded two global investors meet, and was in two minds till the last minute whether to join forces with the KJP but eventually continued to be in the BJP, in Bilgi. He lost by 11,000 to Congress' J T Patil in the constituency, where the KJP had not fielded any candidate.
Other ministers, who lost included V Somanna (Vijayanagar), B N Bache Gowda (Hoskote), Revunaik Belamagi (Gulbarga Rural), A Narayanaswamy (Anekal), Sogadu Shivanna (Tumkur), S K Bellubbi (Basavana Bagewadi), Kalakappa Bandi (Ron), S A Ravindranatha (Davangere North), S A Ramadass (Krishnaraja) and Anand Asnotikar (Karwar).
The Congress was not without "significant casualties". In a shock defeat, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President G Parameshwara, also a chief ministerial candidate, lost in Koratagere in Tumkur district to Janata Dal-Secular opponent, P R Sudhakara Lal, by more than 18,000.
Congress candidate and former Union civil aviation minister C M Ibrahim was pushed to third position in Bhadrawati. Meanwhile, infrastructure-entrepreneur of Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Project Ashok Kheny, the Karnataka Makkala Paksha candidate, won from Bidar South, defeating sitting JD-S member of Legislative Assembly Bandeppa Kashempur by more than 3,000 votes.
